The present invention relates to a medicine supply apparatus for filling a medicine bottle with medicines contained in a tablet case by a quantity designated by a prescription in a hospital, a dispensing pharmacy or the like.
Heretofore, medicines prescribed by a doctor are supplied to a patient by use of a medicine supply apparatus in a hospital or a dispensing pharmacy. That is, in this type of medicine supply apparatus, medicines (tablets, capsules, etc.) having a quantity described in a prescription are discharged one by one from a tablet case via a discharge drum to fill a medicine bottle.
In this case, a plurality of horizontally juxtaposed tablet cases are vertically stacked in stages. The medicine bottle is moved along the backside of the cases, conveyed to a predetermined tablet case, and filled with the medicines discharged from the tablet case (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,085,938 and 6,592,005).
As described above, in the medicine supply apparatus which fills the medicine bottle with the medicines, heretofore the system has been adopted in which a plurality of horizontally juxtaposed tablet cases are stacked in a plurality of stages, and the medicines are obliquely discharged rearwards to drop downwards. This causes a disadvantage that the discharged medicines are caught by a chute. In the medicine supply apparatus in which 200 or more necessary tablet cases are usually disposed, a height dimension is obliged to be increased. As a result, there is a problem that an installation space is partitioned, and the apparatus has to be disposed along the wall face.
Moreover, the plurality of horizontally juxtaposed tablet cases are vertically stacked in the plurality of stages, and the medicine bottles are vertically and horizontally moved on the rear side, conveyed to a predetermined tablet case, and filled with the medicines discharged from the tablet case.
That is, heretofore, in the medicine supply apparatus which fills the medicine bottles with the medicines, the plurality of horizontally disposed tablet cases are stacked in the plurality of stages, and the medicine bottles are vertically and horizontally moved, filled, and provided. Therefore, the apparatus has a problem that a constitution of a conveying device which conveys the medicines is complicated, and costs suddenly rise.
Moreover, in the medicine supply apparatus which fills the medicine bottle with the medicines, it is necessary to attach, to the outside of the medicine bottle, a label on which there are printed a name of a person to be provided, such as a patient, a medicine name, administration and the like. Heretofore, this label has been manually attached, or the medicine bottle has been fed into a label printing device to automatically attach the label to the bottle. In any case, an operation to handle the medicine bottle is increased, and the operation is laborious.